Top 5 of the month (April)

Top 5 of the month (April)

If you didn’t see last month’s Top 5 Edits post you might want to check it out, at least to read the intro so that you understand why we’ve chosen to add this new section to our site.

Alain Goikoetxea’s Volcom part.

I’m pretty sure Koston was referring to free online sections like this one he said “I hate for people to think skating is so disposable: those 5 minutes of footage are a couple of years of someone’s life” in his recent web interview. Alain’s one of Europe’s most well respected pros and to he’s been stacking up amazing footage for what seems like at least 4 years to make this happen. To think that these 5 and a half minutes Cardielesque savagery will probably be forgotten by most of us the minute we click on the new Suciu is painful. That cab back tail alone makes it deserve more than that to sit on the hellaclips front page next to some kid’s sponsor-me footage…

Benoît “Beñat” Stevenot in Anagram’s “Crazy Extreme Skate”.

http://mpora.com/videos/AAdgvxnunjwb

I was unsure whether or not to post this because it’s more or less a leak from Anagram’s “Crazy Extreme Skate” video (that you can buy here), but I’m so intrigued by this guy that I just couldn’t resist. Plus it’s been online for almost a month and nobody seems to have complained. Seven or 8 years ago I was still convinced this “Beñat” from the French Basque Country was just an urban legend. I kept hearing stories about a gnarly looking skater with an earring who could do switch heelflip bluntslide pop outs and other crazy manoeuvres that I had a hard time believing. The fact that he was also supposed to be a butcher, skate reebok classics rather than skate shoes and not care being sponsored just added to the mythical character’s persona. Luckily for us he really did exist and he even ended up getting (Nike, Anagram and Hélas) which meant that people started filming him and 3 years ago French skateboarding was officially introduced to “Beñat”. The best thing about this is that his skating turned out to be exactly as I’d imagined it to be: violent. I can’t think of anyone else with the same sort of style…He brutalises ledges and stomps everything so insolently that you almost forget how much precision and delicacy it takes to do tricks like the switch backside 180 to front crook to fakie.

What I like about this one is that although it’s all filmed Vx and edited to a lot of nineties hip-hop, it doesn’t take the slightly contrived “90’s/raw/less is more ” approach too far. What I mean by this is that they don’t use the fact that they are skating good looking that most of us will never have seen before as an excuse to not do hard tricks. Marcos Gomez, Gerardo Anaya and Günes’ parts are particularly sick but the standard of skating is pretty impressive throughout the video, especially considering it’s the first time we see anything from a lot of these guys. Bobby Puleo and Chewy have even got a few tricks in the friends section… I wish we would get to see this side of Spanish skateboarding more often!

Kilian Zehnder – LiveLifeSkate Part

I know a lot of you are going are probably going to ask yourselves “why is this in here? He’s just another super-kid skating a bunch of bland L.A spots…” Well I think there’s a little more to his skating than that. For instance I quite like his slightly stiff legged style and you can’t say he doesn’t have a good trick selection (front crook pop-over to fakie?!). Plus have any of you ever tried getting footage in L.A? When people say it’s hard to get stuff out there because of the hours you waste sitting in your car and the amount of times you get kicked out they aren’t exaggerating: it’s a nightmare. Personally I find it amazing that this 19 year old from Zurich managed to film an 8-minute part in L.A, no matter how easy it looks for him. It’s not like it’s 8 minutes of filler either, he’s doing switch frontside feeble pop outs in lines!

Newsletter Terms & Conditions

Please enter your email so we can keep you updated with news, features and the latest offers. If you are not interested you can unsubscribe at any time. We will never sell your data and you'll only get messages from us and our partners whose products and services we think you'll enjoy.